Hide and Seek
by Melendara
Summary: Percy has dreams of heroes, friends his brain created...right? AU


**Hide and Seek**  
><strong>CHAPTER ONE: I Am Incredibly Lucky<strong>

**Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson and the Olympians, or the characters from that fandom.**  
><strong>Summary: Percy has dreams of heroes, friends his brain created...right? AU<strong>

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><p>I got out of bed sluggishly, walking to the bathroom. As I combed my stubbornly messy black hair, I tried to remember the events of my dream. I was sure that in the dream, I'd been a hero, with lots of friends, and that, as usual, it had been connected to all my other dreams since age 4 (how does that work, anyway?) and I could remember a few parts that confirmed that theory, but not much else-just a few key plot points, unfortunately sparse details, a happy feeling, and a thirst for more-<em>It was just a dream, anyway,<em> I told myself. _That would never happen in real life._

I got back into bed, closed my eyes, and tried to return to that fantasy world. I could almost hear, REQUEST DENIED. Giving up, I got back out of my warm, too-small, bed I'd had since forever and started to brush my teeth.

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><p>I had never been one of the popular kids at any of my schools. I'd always been the loser new kid that everyone avoided. This school was no exception, and as I stepped into the hallway, I was greeted with insults and the occasional shove or rude hand gesture.<p>

Trying my best to ignore it all, I walked into the classroom, sitting down in the back with a sigh. The teachers didn't like me either. I couldn't really blame them though, I tried my best, but it was clear my best was still much worse than everyone else's. After all, how was I supposed to learn anything when I couldn't read the textbooks or pay attention?

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><p>Finally, the bell rang, and I ran to the door-only to be stopped by a stern, "Mr Jackson, I would like to talk to you." My eyes widened. If Mrs Ashton wanted to talk to you, you must have been doing something, not wrong, but potentially apocalypse-causing, horrible in all caps.<br>To my relief, she only said, "Your grades have started to rise. Keep doing whatever you're doing," and let me go.  
>I figured that my luck would start spiralling downwards now, though, because there was no way I had ever done anything deus ex machina worthy in my life. I had no idea how right I was.<p>

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><p>My mother is a wonderful person. She's friendly, optimistic, and always brings me "samples" of blue candy when she comes back from her job at Sweet On America. However, she must have terrible taste in men, because she fell for a guy who left before I was born (I know, she told me so, though sometimes I can almost remember his smile, which makes no sense) and then she married Smelly Gabe.<p>

If my life was a modern retelling of Cinderella, then Smelly Gabe would be the stepmother and the stepsisters fused together in a lab experiment that involved lots of mouldy cheese and gym shorts.

Smelly Gabe was greedy, rude, fat and, yes, he was smelly. We shared a mutual hate and a "guy secret", which meant that if I told mother that he was using my money for his gambling, he'd "punch my lights out", as he so eloquently put it.

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><p>Anyway, when I got home, Smelly Gabe was there, but this time he was alone, lounging around in the living room, watching football reruns, drinking beer and burping loudly. Every once in a while, the gas came out the other end.<br>Repulsed, I tried to creep away, but he noticed me, somehow, even though his disgusting smell, of cheap alcohol and chips, should have covered everything up. I didn't have any money or food, so he turned away, uninterested, reaching a flabby arm out for another Doritos. I ran to my room, wondering which innocent baby I accidentally saved to deserve this good fortune.

I made a mental pledge that if I ever went to a heaven-though that was unlikely, I was an atheist, it might still be possible, and recent events were making me change my viewpoint on the topic of a possible Cosmic Being Of The Universe-then I would suck it up and tell the security guards, or whoever guarded heaven, that there must have been a mistake, I had never done anything really good, or even somewhat useful, except maybe for a evil wannabe trying to corrupt the world with worthlessness, ever.

Lost in thought, I took a step into my room, and was promptly overwhelmed by the odor of beer, smoke, and weeks old underpants. I made another pledge, to make Gabe's life miserable whenever it wouldn't lower my chance of living to eighteen years old.

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><p>The next day, after school, Mrs Ashton kept me after class again, this time to deliver a note that I wasn't supposed to read to another teacher. I guessed that it was a love letter and dutifully didn't read it.<p>

While walking to the nearest McDonalds for some lunch (the cafeteria food tasted like styrofoam and my mother couldn't afford to pack food for me) I bumped into a little kid, around seven or eight, clutching a Happy Meal tightly in his little hands, who looked remarkably like someone I knew, though I didn't know who.

He took one look at me, paled, and ran away. I was about to apologise for whatever I must have done to him, when I realised-_he looked like a mini-Fang, from the Maximum Ride manga!_ That thought led to another, making me forget all about him and my lunch, and rush to the public library. I didn't notice his, also remarkable, resemblance to one of my friends in my dreams.

He could have passed as a miniature version of that boy, as well.

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><p><strong>AN: So, did you like this? It's the longest fan fiction I've ever written-around 1000 words. I know, it's pathetically short, but at least it's not 300 words, which is the normal length of my chapters.**


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